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Worlds Apart: The fact that an International Women’s Day is eminently binary is troubling. It might just be words playing tricks on us, but it is worth exploring… There are very good grounds to celebrate and encourage those who push back the boundaries of what being a woman or girl means. Read more.

Worlds Apart: International Women’s Day 2018 – a gallery of women to honour the 2018 International Women’s Day. “We are strong. We bow to no one. We are the creative force of this world. We give birth to the future, our future…” Annie Wight, Stories People Tell. See the gallery on Worlds Apart.

Worlds Apart: The whole farcical situation of the Trump presidency underlines the fact that not everybody, no matter how bloated their ego or how bent on destruction their followers, is suited to head a country. Read more.

Worlds Apart: Brexit, what better illustration of how a new word can become the vehicle for so much wishful thinking, so many fantasies and such terrible nightmares, as well as a festering breeding-ground for divisive thinking and extreme ideologies…

The release of a new novel is always a major event, the culmination of months if not years of work, but this new book, Stories People Tell, which is set in London in the current day, is probably the most significant book I have written so far.

Stories People Tell is a tale about Annie Wight, a shy schoolgirl who, despite sustained, cruel treatment and personal doubts, blossoms into a major voice in the grassroots movement ‘London Whatever’ celebrating gender diversity while struggling to end violence against women and care for the weak and marginalised.

Annie wasn’t expecting to stumble on love or notoriety when she got swept up in ‘London Whatever’. Nor could she have known that, right from the outset, she would become the number one target of Nolan Kard, the homophobic Lord Mayor of London. who was campaigning to ‘Keep London Straight’. She bore the brunt of attacks from his rogue police, not to mention from a sinister gang of ghostwriters, the nightmare of all Kard’s enemies.

Author’s Notes: Why is this performance of Karl Jenkins’ Adiemus by the Carmina Slovenica girls choir so deeply moving? The power of these girls lies in their potential and their sheer beauty striding forward into adulthood as expressed in their movements, in their voices, in their very being both individually and as a group united… And how does that connect to Annie, the hero of Stories People Tell? Read more and watch the video on Author’s Notes.

Just received the galley proof of Stories People Tell. In the next few days the new novel will be available on Amazon around the world and the electronic version will be posted to Smashwords, Apple, Kindle etc…. Details can be found here: stories-people-tell.com

Author’s Notes: Alienated. It’s no longer a word in common use. Strange. At a time when many feel alien in their own world and many others are being excluded if not eliminated for being ‘alien’. Estranged, disconnected, mad even, yet seeing things differently can have its advantages, especially for writers and other artists.

(…) Rather than berating ourselves for our foreignness and suffering at being different or worrying we are going crazy, why not relish the strength and the heightened discernment that feeling alien brings… ( read on)

Sad news indeed. Noémi Lapzeson has left us. Although she moved on from dance at the end of her life, she will no doubt be remembered most for her contributions to contemporary dance. I have fond memories of filming Amour Baroque, her choreography based on Claudio Monteverdi’s music, L’incoronazione di Poppea at what used to be called the Salle Patino, Geneva.

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Now available

Stories People Tell

The tale of a shy schoolgirl who blossoms into a major voice in a movement celebrating gender diversity while struggling to end violence against women and tend for the needy.Order your copy, read it and talk about it.

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Now available

Stories People Tell

The tale of a shy schoolgirl who blossoms into a major voice in a movement celebrating gender diversity while struggling to end violence against women and tend for the needy.Order your copy, read it and talk about it.